Reaching Maturity

Hi!
Week three started off with a twist- My partner and I became Chef's Sous Chefs for the week. This "honor" is bestowed on a different pair of students every week at random, so naturally I took it as a sign that Chef now loves me. We have some added responsibilities- making sure Chef has all tools, and ingredients raring to go before his model lesson- setting up his “Mis En Place” or MEP. This means a whole lot of scrambling and a whole lot less of paying attention. Also, Chef isn’t all that clear with his directions-he changes his mind as to what he wants and how much of it he wants (probably to keep us on our toes, I’m sure). His accent DOESN’T help. Example. He told Partner to get something from the “pool”- She looked at me quizzically. Now, I had no idea what the “pool” was, BUT we do have something in class called the “pull”, which are the specialty ingredients we get from the store room every day. Obviously (though it want obvious at that moment) Chef was talking about the “pull”. This week should be interesting.
Last night’s lesson was devoted to fruit and five ways you can “cook” them. We roasted/baked, poached, macerated, dehydrated/dried and candied (in case “macerated” is a foreign term, it means to soften by breaking down the fruit-usually berries- in a slurry, I believe. In our case, sugar, herbs and balsamic vinegar). None of this is terribly exciting (unless you really like Apple Chips) but getting all five dishes done and your station cleaned up in a short period of time was challenging. It was also important to learn time management. The candied orange peel and dehydrated apples had to be done first, because they took longest, followed by the poached pears, roasted pears and figs and then finally the macerated strawberries. Our poached pears smelled excellent, and I’m told the syrupy poaching liquid (wine, sugar, vanilla, lemon) tasted great. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to sample the poached fruit, as they will be used in a later class to make tarts. Any time the word “tart” or “pie” is used in class I cheer a bit, so I’m not complaining that we couldn’t sample the pears (that and the fact that I couldn’t eat them anyway…)
It is important to note a level of maturity that I reached last night. As I was getting lemons out of the fridge, I dropped one and it rolled under an industrial sized freezer. No one saw me do this. I could have gotten away scot free, and then in two weeks when someone noticed rotting lemon smells, I could have SO easily played dumb. And for a while I was content with this plan. It took me two hours to tell chef about the lemon, but no matter, I told him! And he got the lemon out and only gave me a marginally annoyed look! I feel so grown up, admitting my clumsy mistakes instead of sweeping them under the freezer. Of course, it wasn’t ten minutes later that I couldn’t open the lock of a cabinet with Chef’s key, but by then the lemon ordeal was forgotten. Whatever, I knew how to chiffonade mint (a way of chopping herbs by rolling them up into themselves and thinly slicing, creating ribbons).
An interesting and awkward thing I noticed: After class, when waiting for a subway, it is not uncommon to spot a classmate. We aren’t yet at the point when we talk much outside of school (I’m shy) but there is some sort of head bob acknowledgment. Also, without our uniforms, and hair out of our hats, it’s harder to recognize people and be SURE that they were the ones sampling your poaching liquid. Finally, even if we do recognize each other, without the crutch of our monogrammed jackets, remembering names is a lot harder. All of this creates very awkward situations when you unwittingly get on the same packed subway car with a class mate, only to semi-ignore her for the ride. Doesnt this make you want to ride the subway with me?
-The sometimes unfriendly Sarah Baer